"What is this really about?" Douglas asked.
Nathan watched him for a moment. "Yesterday I visited Branch Twelve in work clothes, with a real check and a request to open the simplest account we offer. I wanted to see what happened when nobody recognized my face."
Douglas looked away for the first time. "You went undercover?"
"I went in as a customer. Bradley told me optional products were mandatory and threatened to deny the account if I declined. A teller warned me to read the disclosure, and he fired her for it."
Douglas rubbed one hand against the edge of the chair. "I knew Bradley had an employee issue. I wasn't told the full circumstances."
"Her name is Grace Holloway. She sent a complaint to your office months ago, with two coworkers, and nobody in my audit committee ever saw it."
"I oversee dozens of branches," Douglas said. "I can't personally investigate every disagreement."
"You don't have to investigate every disagreement to make sure they reach the people who can. Branch Twelve is now under an independent audit supervised by the board's risk committee. Your regional access to complaint dispositions and product enrollments is temporarily restricted while the records are preserved."
"You're freezing my access?" Douglas asked. His voice had finally lost its careful warmth. "Do you understand what that signals to the whole organization?"
"It signals that a complaint is worth investigating whether it arrives from a branch teller or an executive," Nathan said. "If the records show you've done nothing wrong, you'll have every opportunity to explain them. Until then, I need you to preserve every message and avoid contacting potential witnesses about what to say."
Douglas stood, then sat again. "You won't find anything improper."
"I hope you're right," Nathan answered. "For the sake of the people whose money we hold, I hope that more than you know."
Douglas left with the controlled stride of a man refusing to appear shaken. In the hallway, he took out his phone and called Bradley Stone. He walked past three employees before speaking, then stopped beside an empty meeting room to make sure nobody could overhear him.
"Bradley," he said, "we have a problem. Reed was in your branch yesterday. The construction worker."
On the other end of the line, Bradley went silent. The morning's staff meeting had just ended, and he was standing in the same office where Grace had left her badge. "The construction worker?" he repeated.
"Exactly. What did you do?"
"Nothing that can't be explained," Bradley said.
"That wasn't the question. The teller?"
"I fired her."
"Of course you did," Douglas muttered. He lowered his voice even further. "Do not delete anything. Do not contact her. Do not make this worse. Reed is auditing the entire branch."
"I wasn't going to delete anything," Bradley answered.
Douglas knew enough about Bradley's daily practices to doubt that, and the realization unsettled him. He had celebrated the branch's results, rewarded its manager, and told other branch leaders to follow its example. He had never wanted to know precisely how the numbers were made. Now the man whose name was on the bank had walked into the middle of them, and excuses were about to become very expensive.